Bel Canto, an offshoot of the 18th century

AMUZ is celebrating the new year with vocal fireworks by Mozart and Rossini. The conductor Giovanni Antonini will lead Anima Eterna in a programme that paved the way for the Italian bel canto of the early 19thcentury. After all, the key to the successful operas by Rossini and his contemporaries is already to be found in Mozart’s opera arias. Gramophone Magazine praised Julia Lezhneva’s interpretation of Rossini’s arias:She has many of the essential attributes for these demanding, wide-ranging arias composed for the most brilliant singers of the day:a pure, pellucid soprano with an intriguing hint of mezzo plangency, fluent movement between registers, and scintillating (if faintly aspirated) coloratura.